Vega Data and Barracuda Fintech Cases, Satgas Appreciates the Police

Satgas appreciates the law enforcement efforts carried out by North Jakarta Police for illegal peer to peer lending fintech.

Wahid Hakim Siregar, a senior analyst for Satgas of the OJK Investigation Policy, said that law enforcement actions by North Jakarta Metro Police towards PT Vega Data Indonesia and PT Barracuda Fintech Indonesia made good news at the end of 2019.

Previously, in early 2019 there was also disclosure of cases of pornography and/or threats and/or immorality and/or threats of violence and intimidation through electronic media conducted by the desk collector of PT Vcard Technology Indonesia (Vloan) against its customers.

“For that reason, we always support law enforcement efforts against illegal fintech lending that has caused a lot of harm to the community,” Wahid Hakim said at a press conference at the North Jakarta Police Station, Friday (12/27).

Based on information obtained, PT Vega Data Indonesia and PT Barracuda Fintech Indonesia several times changed the name of the online loan application under its auspices.

Among these, as many as two applications have been detected and announced by the Investment Alert Task Force: the “Dompet Kartu” application on September 7, 2018, and the “Pinjam Beres” application on February 13, 2019.

Satgas on Investment Has Made Very Stritch Prevention and Effort against Illegal Fintech

Satgas on Investment has made very strict prevention and handling effort against illegal Fintech Lending. “We are distributing press releases so that the public knows, blocking through the Ministry of Communication and Informatics about illegal fintech applications, and delivering information to law enforcement officials.” He said.

“On the other hand, we have conducted education to the public through socialization activities such as on public transportation MRT and LRT, and railing. This done so that people know and can distinguish between illegal and legal fintech,” he explained.

According to Wahid, this was a real effort by law enforcement officials and also the OJK Investment Alert Task Force, that this activity was strictly prohibited. This activity is detrimental to society, in terms of unethical billing, terror, harassment, even the act of immorality.

“This is very disturbing for the public and this case is one of the breakthrough legal efforts so that other illegal fintech do not operate anymore,” he said.

This effort is intensified by law enforcement to eradicate the existence of illegal fintech. The hope is that in the future more cases will be revealed.

The Investment Alert Task Force said that currently there are many Fintech Lending entities that carry out activities through applications that are distributed via text messages, Appstore or Playstore, even unregistered and unlicensed social media from the FSA according to Financial Services Authority Regulation Number 77 / POJK.01 / 2016 thus potentially harming the community.

From 2018 until the end of 2019, the Investment Alert Task Force has cracked down on 1,898 illegal peer-to-peer lending fintech entities.

The Case of Fintech Barracuda which Suck Up Money Up to 5 M caused Public Anxiety

PT Barracuda Fintech Indonesia has been siphoning off profits of up to Rp5 billion over a year of online lending and lending operations.

This was said by North Jakarta Police Chief Budhi Herdi. According to him, this illegal financial technology (fintech) platform has actually changed the name of the application up to 15 times.

With that mode, the platform has collected up to 500,000 customers which incidentally is the lower middle class with loans ranging from Rp500,000 to Rp2.5 million.

The Barracuda Fintech application which was active during the raid was named Kascash and Tokotunai. The Tokotunai application has even disbursed loans reaching IDR 70 billion, with returns received reaching IDR 78 billion.